Strong Yet Innocent
by It's Ink
Summary: Katie Bell reflects on how the Battle at Hogwarts changed the people around her. A bit repetitive, with hints of KBOW. Takes place about 7 years after. One-shot.


**_Disclaimer:_** I don't Harry Potter. If I did I wouldn't be stuck looking for a part-time job right now.

**AN: **I don't have a beta yet so the grammer might be on the terrible side. This is a one-shot and I have no plans to change that. Otherwise please enjoy.

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I can tell you when exactly when we (those of us that were born after what's call the first war) lost our innocence...

When I look back up that time, the time in which Voldemart controlled the ministry, the time when world that we had had before then was turned upside down, I realize that all of us that came after the first war, were so innocent before then. We knew nothing of the dangers that Voldemart had posed, would later pose. All of us except Harry that is, making him more prepared than the rest of us.

When we entered that time of…chaos and fear, we were all so innocent, thinking we knew what was to come over the next few months, but honestly we didn't. And although that time before the battle was horrible enough. That little innocence we had left, that we held on to with what strength we had to spare, disappeared when the fight began.

And when that fight ended, well there were none of us that could sleep a peaceful night without a potion to aid us because of what was lost during it.

I myself went four days without sleep before I finally gave into it, and even then it was a restless sleep, not very deep and often interrupted by me waking up from a nightmare. And none of us, who fought in that battle will ever truly heal, will ever truly get over what we saw during it.

I mean there are countless physical scars on the surface, day to day reminders of what we faced during that, but there are other scars that run far deeper than the physical ones, that plague us week to week. Deep emotional scars that show themselves from time to time, usually when we're under stress and others like people or objects. I pity Harry who has to deal with the reminder of his godson, whose mere sight must remind him how the boy's parents were lost in the battle.

I can remember back before it happened, in my fourth year, scared because Sirius Black was on the loose, but still playing Quidditch, playing wizard chess with Leanne and getting help on History Of Magic homework from Oliver. We lived carelessly back then, focusing on the months ahead and not the day-to-day things like we would some four years later. We had little worry about back then other than injuries from Quidditch, and troublesome essays. School was our lives for 10 out of the 12 months a year, and that's all that mattered to us. During the summer breaks we focused on the homework that had been assigned, that is unless you ended your seventh year, then you focused on finding a job. Not one of us would have predicted such thing to happen only a few years away.

None of us were prepared for what was to come over those few months.  
We were all so innocent when the whole disaster began, and now we are hardened by it all.

With my job at the Daily Prophet I often asked to interview people, usually Quidditch stars, such as my husband, on occasion others, such as those involved in the battle. There are still days when I'm asked to interview people who fought in that battle, days where I'm asked to be interviewed and you'd think that a full seven years after it, they'd finally have the full picture. Yet all of us who were there know the truth, you'd had had to have been there to fully understand it all.

We are cracked, and we are broken because of it, but we fought and we held strong. We survived, when others who we cared for didn't. We go on despite it all.

But even to this day, the first thing that always comes to mind when I think of that battle at Hogwarts seven years ago, and horror that came before hand is: We were all so innocent before hand, but strong enough in the end of it all to handle the reality.

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Hit or miss folks?  
Any review is loved.


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